


Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): Tony and Diva

by literally_no_idea



Series: Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH) Main Series [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SDfSH 'verse, Service Animals, Service Dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 21:15:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literally_no_idea/pseuds/literally_no_idea
Summary: Regardless of training, Natasha still isn't completely perfect; she makes mistakes too. When she starts to notice subtle things in Tony's behavior, she wants to kick herself for having missed it in the first place. She's determined to set those wrongs right.





	Service Dogs for Superheroes (SDfSH): Tony and Diva

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the next installment of this series!

Lucky has become a normal part of everyone’s life, especially Clint’s, and the team’s behavior starts to change enough to accommodate for Lucky in everything they do.

 

Most of it is minor changes; leaving extra space for Lucky to sit under tables, beside couches, and between people’s legs, breaks from activities so Clint can take Lucky outside to play or pee, and someone always carrying water and a bowl in case Lucky gets thirsty. However, Natasha starts to notice some significant changes around the tower, changes that only Stark could have made.

 

Constantly filtering dog water dishes start to appear on every floor that the team has access to, dog bag dispensers appear on the walls outside, a bucket of toys finds its way into the living room on the communal floor, and a section of the pantry is suddenly cleared out and replaced with bags of high quality dog food.

 

Natasha starts watching Tony more, watches the way he goes through his day, how he interacts with Lucky. Every time he sees the dog, he pauses what he’s doing, mumbling a hello and reaching down to scratch Lucky behind the ears. She even watches him pause halfway through assembling a new piece of tech, something she’s never seen him do before.

 

She starts to notice behaviors that she’s never picked up on before, or at least never recognized for what they were, and she suddenly feels like she’s been falling behind in her perceptive skills.

 

She sees how Tony refuses to take anything someone tries to hand to him directly, how he glances away every time, as if that will eliminate the situation entirely. He constantly has dark shadows under his eyes, he sometimes stumbles when standing up, and he drinks more coffee than can possibly be healthy, even if he were Thor. She keeps watching him, trying to decide if she should address the problem with him directly, until she encounters a dealbreaker situation. 

 

They're all on the communal floor, sprawled across the living room and watching Tangled, because Thor seems to be oddly obsessed with animated movies. Steve comes back from the kitchen with more popcorn as the song “Mother Knows Best” plays out on screen, accidentally bumping Tony on the shoulder as he passes by. Tony flinches, and it's so subtle that Natasha almost misses it. Steve says sorry, and Tony just smiles and brushes it off, but his shoulders are still tense, and he doesn’t relax again until the scene in the movie changes.

 

She decides to ask JARVIS about it, and once she's convinced Jarvis that this is for the purpose of helping Tony, not harming him, she asks him about anything else Tony might need, and Jarvis tells her that Tony has trauma around water, so she adds that to her notes.

 

It takes her a couple of days to find a breed that would be best suited to Tony’s needs, and she ultimately chooses a Landseer, a large dog that can swim in case Tony ever gets stuck in water somehow. She doubts that will ever happen, but as a team of superheroes protecting Earth, they always need to expect the unexpected.

 

It takes her another week to find a breeder in Tennessee, three months after that for the litter to be born, and another two months before she’s allowed to go pick the puppy up. She gets first choice of the litter (perks of calling early and Tony being famous), and she flies out to Tennessee under the guise of going on a short reconnaissance mission, choosing the puppy and having the breeder hold onto the puppy until he’s about a year old.

 

When the puppy comes home (Natasha flies out again, this time disguised as a “vacation day”), she asks Jarvis to help her keep the puppy secret from everyone else, and he makes sure that she can sneak the puppy in and out of places without being spotted. She names the puppy DIVA, or Drastically Important Vital Assistant, because she knows the names Tony has given to his robots, and figures that giving Diva a similar name will help him fit right in.

 

She starts training Diva in basic obedience, and, after some more training mistakes (she’s never trained a puppy before, and it turns out to be different from training an adult dog, go figure), she starts him on advanced obedience after 3 months at home.

 

After 7 months home, Natasha starts working with Diva on his tasks. The puppy is still working on advanced obedience, but he’s ready to start learning his tasks, too, and he's thrilled to learn new things.

 

12 months after bringing Diva home, when Diva is 2 years old, Natasha takes him to the vet to have his hips and elbows tested for dysplasia, as well as checking to see if his growth plates are fully fused. The results show that he’s finished growing and his hips and elbows are in the good ranges, and after a consultation with an orthopedic veterinarian, Diva is cleared to do mobility work. Natasha takes Diva’s measurements, ordering him a mobility assistance harness online.

 

Natasha takes Diva to a professional trainer with mobility service dog experience, and the trainer walks her through how to train Diva to brace properly. It’s not as hard as she’d thought it would be, but she’s glad she talked to a trainer about it, because the last thing she would want is to hurt Diva.

 

Finally, when Diva is two and a half years old, Natasha feels confident enough in his skills to take him to Tony. She’ll need to teach Tony how to work with him, and she’ll need to make sure Tony wants to work with him in the first place (though she’s confident he will), so she takes Diva down to Tony’s workshop with her, already wearing his harness.

 

Tony lets them in without even looking, too absorbed in the screen projection he’s working on. “What can I do for you, Agent Romanoff?” He asks, and Natasha walks Diva over to the desk behind Tony, putting him in a sit before responding.

 

“Actually, it’s what we can do for you,” she says, and Tony turns, frowning.

 

“‘We?’ Jarvis only told me you were coming down--” he freezes when he sees Diva, breath hitching slightly. “Oh my god. Who is this?”

 

“This is Diva, or Drastically Important Vital Assistant,” Natasha says, “He’s for you. I’ve noticed how much you’re struggling, and I’ve seen how you look at Lucky, so I figured a service dog of your own would be helpful.”

 

Tony tenses, turning around to collapse the holograms he’d been modifying. “You’ve noticed? So, is it that obvious, or--”

 

“No, it’s not obvious. Not everyone has the level of perception training I have. I think I’m the only one that’s noticed, and it took me a long time to notice, too.”

 

Tony relaxes a little, but he’s still tense. “Okay. Okay, so you got me a dog. What is he trained to do, exactly?”

 

“He’s trained in PTSD and anxiety alerts and response. Nightmare and night terror response. Blocking between you and others. Guiding you out of environments. Bracing to help you stand up. And he knows how to swim, in case something comes up.”

 

Tony’s eyes widen. “H-How did you know about…?”

 

“I didn't. Jarvis helped me,” she says, “I convinced him this would be good for you.”

 

“Well. You were right, so. Thank you. How do I work with Diva? I don't know what to do, obviously I don't have a service dog, so--”

 

“I’ll show you. I’ll work with both of you, so you can get to know each other and how to work with each other. If anything I trained him to do doesn’t work, or you need him to do something else that I’ve haven’t trained him to do yet, just let me know, and we can train that together.”

 

It takes two weeks before Tony’s completely comfortable with handling Diva by himself; Natasha trusts him by the end of the first week, but he doesn't seem to fully trust himself, so she lets him adjust at his own pace. The other Avengers are confused at first, partially because many of them didn’t even realize Tony was struggling to begin with, and partially because everyone’s amazed at how well Natasha had hidden Diva from them all.

 

Just like they had with Lucky, however, everyone gets used to Diva’s presence, and he becomes just as much a part of the team as Lucky had. Tony’s a lot more protective of Diva than he is of himself, it seems, and he makes all kinds of dog-related changes to the Tower (“I was going to do it for Lucky, but I didn’t want it to be awkward, or make it seem like I was trying to bribe you for your dog,” he tells Clint one day when someone asks how he got everything set up so quickly.)

 

By the time Tony’s comfortable taking care of Diva himself, he’s created an entire floor in the Tower as an indoor dog park (complete with a self-cleaning floor, and a side room full of various dog toys), tennis ball simulators on every Avengers team floor (having actual tennis balls lying around isn't always safe for a team of superheroes who have to constantly drop everything and run out to save the world), dog bathrooms on every floor that are both human and dog accessible (because it’s not always the most practical for the dogs to have to go all the way outside, and the dogs still need a way to pee if everyone’s on a mission), and self-replenishing dog food bowls that only respond to the dog whose bowl it is.

 

The first time the team decides to go out to eat somewhere, Tony frets over Diva’s gear for a solid five minutes before Natasha finally has to drag him out the door, reassuring him that he’ll be fine, really, and Diva will do great.

 

At the restaurant, the waiter just looks at Lucky and Diva for a minute before shrugging and seating them at a set of tables large enough for the whole team. Clint and Natasha trade a look, glancing at Tony, but Diva just places his head in Tony’s lap, sitting under the table at his feet with a sigh. Tony scratches him head absentmindedly, looking over the menu.

 

Dinner is uneventful, with only a few people coming up to ask for pictures, and it’s the calmest evening they could have asked for as a first outing for Tony and Diva. By the end of dinner, Tony seems significantly calmer and more at ease with himself, and by the time they get back to the tower, Tony’s already talking about newer versions of Diva’s gear, modifications to make it simultaneously more functional and more fashionable, possible add-ons and accessories, different colors, and more, and Natasha is finally completely confident that giving Tony a service dog was one of the best decisions she’s ever made.

**Author's Note:**

> So, some notes about service dogs, and particularly mobility service dogs, if anyone's curious:
> 
> -All of the service animals in this series that are used for hands-on mobility tasks are approximately half the height and half the weight of their handler or more. If they're for light mobility, these numbers might be as low as 40% the height and weight of the handler. While these are not necessarily the required minimum, I do prefer for the dogs to be larger rather than smaller.
> 
> -When it comes to mobility service dogs (or any service dog, for that matter) ethical practices are absolutely a must. If a dog is used for mobility, they should not begin training their mobility tasks until they are fully grown and have been cleared as in the acceptable ranges for hip and elbow dysplasia. Check with your veterinarian, preferably an orthopedic veterinarian.
> 
> -For the love of dogs, do not use a dog that has greyhound-like physique for mobility. Their bones are very lightweight, which means that you could seriously hurt them if you use them for mobility, particularly bracing (where you push down on the handle of the harness).
> 
> -Do some dogs take longer than two years to be fully grown? Yes. But for the sake of this story, please just bear with me on this. I'm quite honestly not educated enough on dog maturity growth to know when each particular breed is more likely to be fully grown.
> 
> This is already a lot of notes, but stick around for future stories, I've got more! Or, if this end notes section has been annoying, in all seriousness, please do tell me so in the comments. I love y'all's input.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, do tell me your thoughts in the comments if you'd like!
> 
> To see my other ramblings and drabbles about this series, find me on tumblr at servicedogsforsuperheroes. Link, if it works, can be found [ here ](https://servicedogsforsuperheroes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> For those who may be interested, Bruce/Hulk will be next :)


End file.
